Elemental is a fantasy strategy game set on a world filled with magic and ancient lore. Rule a fledgling kingdom and expand it across the world through a combination of magical power, military might, diplomatic skill, technological advancement and bold adventuring.

As sovereign, you begin as the only being in your kingdom still able to channel power from the shards of magic, a series of mystical artifacts left over from the cataclysm.

You must decide how much of your power to imbue into your heroes as you build new cities, explore dungeons, perfect spells of ever increasing power and negotiate with friends and foes.

Victory can be yours through conquest, magical supremacy, diplomatic alliances or the completion of the master quest.

I love my turn-based strategy titles, and prefer the fantasy setting over sci-fi, so I see myself getting into this game much more than other Stardock titles. Although I'm concerned by their history that the story will be non-existent.

I would think the first rule of PR is to ignore forum people, because they vacillate between crazy and liar. - Elysium

I love my turn-based strategy titles, and prefer the fantasy setting over sci-fi, so I see myself getting into this game much more than other Stardock titles. Although I'm concerned by their history that the story will be non-existent.

Exactly. If this actually has a campaign I will buy it, if it is just another multiplayer sandbox like Sins then I will probably pass.

Beta isn't here yet. I already pre-ordered a year ago. I have high hopes for this game.

Ditto. This is honestly one of my most-wanted games on the pc, right up there with the likes of Diablo 3 (one of my most beloved franchises). Everything I've read about Elemental seems to be putting it on track with what I want out of a grand fantasy turn-based strategy game, and with multiplayer to boot!

I'm really anticipating the upcoming beta, as I've had my pre-order in for quite some time now!

"We are at our best when we work together. We are at our worst when we expend valuable and finite energy and resources destroying one another." - Paleocon, regarding humanity.

For BETA 1, we're not really looking for "bug" reports. We want to hear people telling us what they'd like to see and how they'd like the game work. We'll debate, discuss, argue, and have a lot of fun putting it all together over the next several months because, well, for us, the BETA process is a key part of the game's (as opposed to the coding) evolution.

Beta 1, will all take place on the cloth map. The idea here is to take all the eye candy away and let beta testers focus first on just the game play.

Over the coming weeks, the economy and magic of Elemental will begin to take shape and beta testers will, ideally, find the game fun despite the Commodore-64 style graphics. Then, when the full environment is added in as well as the tactical battles the fun will be greatly amplified because you'll be able to see the true effects of your power!

Players who pre-order the game will be able to download beta builds via Impulse. For more information or to pre-order Elemental visit www.elementalgame.com.

I heard Jason Ocampo talk glowingly about this game on one of the old Command Prompt podcasts. Seems like it might be a bit too hardcore for me, but you never know, I might find myself bored on a Sunday afternoon and decide to give it a shot.

Instant access to the beta is a big plus in my book, as it lets me play the game right away, even though it may not come out for months, and therefore satisfies my shiny new game obsession.

"You realise that you're questioning the internal logic of a game in which a fat plumber rides a dinosaur in space?" Jonman

I love my turn-based strategy titles, and prefer the fantasy setting over sci-fi, so I see myself getting into this game much more than other Stardock titles. Although I'm concerned by their history that the story will be non-existent.

Exactly. If this actually has a campaign I will buy it, if it is just another multiplayer sandbox like Sins then I will probably pass.

Isn't a book publisher of one ilk or another involved in fleshing out the background, lore and plot of the core campaign?

I love my turn-based strategy titles, and prefer the fantasy setting over sci-fi, so I see myself getting into this game much more than other Stardock titles. Although I'm concerned by their history that the story will be non-existent.

Yeah, as @HedgeWizard said there is a book being written along side of the game about the story.

kuddles wrote:

Wait a minute...the person who started this thread works at Stardock?As a technology evangelist?? This is a goddamn sponsored viral marketing thread! PLANT! PLANT! PLANT!

I looked forward to a thread on Elemental, don't really care who started it.

I wants me some information and opinions!!!

What`s to opinionate about? We wants it!

I'll opinionate!

Having only looked at what's directly in this thread, the setting looks very generic to me. European-style dragon? Check. European Medieval architecture? Check. Magic? In shard form (who the hell keeps breaking the magic?).

While that has no real bearing on how good the gameplay is, I'll admit it's a turn-off to me. It feels like a wasted opportunity, or worse, a fear of trying something new.

With all due respect, of course, Island Dog. I'm a big fan of Stardock and if the game turns out to be as good as everyone seems to suspect, I'll probably buy it.

I looked forward to a thread on Elemental, don't really care who started it.

I suppose, but would everyone feel the same way if a hired employee from Activision came and started a catch-all thread for Tony Hawk's Ride? It doesn't really bother me, since he's clearly open about it, but I guess that's all I'm questioning.

Also, I'm now totally excited for it if there's a real single player campaign attached to it. Between this and the King's Bounty expansion, it looks like the lack of a new HOMM game won't be a problem for a while.

I would think the first rule of PR is to ignore forum people, because they vacillate between crazy and liar. - Elysium

I suppose, but would everyone feel the same way if a hired employee from Activision came and started a catch-all thread for Tony Hawk's Ride? It doesn't really bother me, since he's clearly open about it, but I guess that's all I'm questioning.

Since he keeps it open that he's an employee/developer, I don't have a problem with it. He also doesn't spam the forum, or engage in intellectually dishonest debates on games he supports or creates. That's the kind of developer I want to see posting on GWJ.

If we're nice, maybe we can get Travis Baldtree (of Mythos fame and the upcoming Torchlight) posting here too!

"We are at our best when we work together. We are at our worst when we expend valuable and finite energy and resources destroying one another." - Paleocon, regarding humanity.

I'm waiting for some new info from PAX before biting the bullet for a preorder. I'm really hungry for a good new fantasy strategy game, I haven't played one since Age of Wonders which I adored. I'm really happy with Stardock as a publisher and Impulse as a retailer but I haven't really played a Stardock developed game yet so that's the source of my trepidation. The only one I tried was GalCiv 1 but it was too old looking for me to really get into.

Also, I'm now totally excited for it if there's a real single player campaign attached to it. Between this and the King's Bounty expansion, it looks like the lack of a new HOMM game won't be a problem for a while.

Did you play the campaign in GalCivII? Because I'm totally not interested in the single player campaign in Elemental based off of those campaigns. I just didn't find them very interesting and much preferred to play my own custom scenarios using my own empire and races created for use in the Metaverse.

Normally I am very much into a sp campaign, but . . .

NSMike wrote:

How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.

I too am very excited about this, and wholly endorse a catch all. If I were remotely inspired enough to do the necessary leg work, I would be aggressively pursuing a beta account. As it is, I'll simply enjoy the delicious anticipation.

The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people -- Thing I saw on the Internet

I'm really interested in seeing how user-friendly the modding tools turn out to be. I learned C++ in college, but after learning it I switched majors to a non-programming language centered degree. I kinda hated the stuff and have no experience with Python.

One of the things that will make Elemental different from anything Stardock has developed before is that we will view the release date of the game as the beginning of its life rather than the climax.

The reason for this is that a big part of our objective with Elemental lies in the engine underneath it. It is our dream to slowly evolve Elemental to be so modable that a user familiar with Python 3.x will be able to use Elemental to create virtually any kind of land base computer game.

One of the things that some of you probably suspect but we can confirm from bitter experience is that while there are plenty of good 3D engines out there (Unreal, Gamebryo, Source, etc.) there aren’t really any modern engines (that we could find anyway) that are specifically designed for top down where there’s lots and lots of units on screen.

What I am hoping will happen is that over time, more and more of Elemental will cease being C++ and be moved into Python scripts. The AI and some of the game logic will be first but eventually as much of the code that we can economically justify taking from C++ will be moved to scripts.

In this way, users would be potentially able to create all kinds of new games using the Elemental engine. For first person shooters, this is nothing new. Civilization IV is extremely moddable too. Our goal here is to take an engine that was designed from the ground up as a 3D engine with full strategic zoom and a multi-threaded graphics engine and make it as generic as possible.

Awesome. I hope they pull it off.

NSMike wrote:

How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.

I too am very excited about this, and wholly endorse a catch all. If I were remotely inspired enough to do the necessary leg work, I would be aggressively pursuing a beta account. As it is, I'll simply enjoy the delicious anticipation.

Wow. That was an impressive passive pursuit. "What's this? I only mentioned that I'd like to do the legwork (in a thread with the developer on my own forums) and magically this key appeared in my inbox!"